A One-In-A-Billion Chance : The Transformative Effect of Stan Lee and Spider-Man on American Popular Culture

The body of research from scholarly sources on the history of comic books contends that Stan Lee’s original run of The Amazing Spider-Man influenced American culture in a generic sense, but little has been written on the specific ways the comic influenced popular culture. This paper details four specific ways that Stan Lee’s Spider-Man influenced American popular culture during the tumultuous decade of the 1960’s. The comic redefined the modern American hero by making a flawed character, with a tenuous grasp on the moral high ground, the protagonist. It also affirmed the newly established teenage identity in American society by depicting a teenager as a full-fledged superhero, not a sidekick. Stan Lee’s Spider-Man also pioneered the use of the comic book medium as a platform to discuss contentious national issues during the 1960’s, including civil rights, drug abuse, and the Vietnam War. Finally, the title undermined censorship in the comic book industry by daring to defy the Comics Code Authority’s prohibition on depictions of drug use. Through these four groundbreaking efforts Stan Lee and Spider-Man earned their place in the pantheon of American popular culture icons and shaped the course of American culture for decades to come

Exploration of Gender Portrayals in Marvel Comics

Comic books have been a major part of American pop culture since around the 1930s. These comic books depicted ordinary people who, through some sort of accident or happenstance, gained superpowers. People who could lift cars over their heads or leap over buildings in a single bound. Comic books have a long history. The history of comics is divided into six ages: the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Plastic Age, the Revival Age, and the present. There have been many different comic book companies over the years, but at the forefront of comic book culture, there have been the two major companies: DC Comics and Marvel Comics. Marvel Comics introduced characters like Spider-Man, Ironman, Captain America, the Human Torch, the Incredible Hulk, etc. Over the years, comic book artists have inadvertently fed readers myths about the male and female physique

Truth, Justice, and the American Way: A Case Study of Comic Books through the Lens of Society

From the early 20th century classics such as Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel to today’s blockbuster franchises capitalizing on big name superheroes like the Avengers or Batman, comic books, and more specifically, their superheroes have undoubtedly reflected the way American society functions at home and on the global scale. In consideration of this, it is important to determine why the scholarly field of Comic Studies and in turn comic books have long been trivialized as an inferior and often childish field and art form. This study will look at two superheroes: Superman and Captain America, to see how they have reflected American ideals and values from the 1930’s to the present. This would be done through a content analysis of both superheroes, as well as, focus on coding particular themes for each comic book era that will correlate with historical instances in a particular era. The study’s goal would be to connect these factors to the overall time frame of a particular era and, ultimately, prove a strong correlation between historical occurrences and how comic books were influenced by said occurrences. These results would suggest that not only are comic books a gateway to the representation of a generations desires and struggles in a constantly changing world, but are also unparalleled by any other history book. But this would also shed a light to the importance of maintaining the study of comic books and their significance as an authentic art form, as well as, demonstrate the importance of comic books, and their superheroes, in American society throughout the twentieth and twentyfirst century

Looking For Black Religions In 20th Century Comics: 1931-1993

Relationships between religion and comics are generally unexplored in the academic literature. This article provides a brief history of Black religions in comic books, cartoons, animation, and newspaper strips, looking at African American Christianity, Islam, Africana (African diaspora) religions, and folk traditions such as Hoodoo and Conjure in the 20th century. Even though the treatment of Black religions in the comics was informed by stereotypical depictions of race and religion in United States (US) popular culture, African American comics creators contested these by offering alternatives in their treatment of Black religion themes

Reaction as image: Comic books and American life, 1940-1955

The comic book became a mass medium during a series of defining moments in twentieth-century American history. By telling and retelling narratives of individual achievement during the Great Depression, and tales of patriotism during World War II, comic books gained a popular audience rivaling that of agenda-setting national periodicals such as Life or The Saturday Evening Post. In the first postwar decade, however, publishers experimented with themes of crime, horror, teen romance, and social satire in ways that provoked a wave of public hostility. Crusading psychiatrists, politicians, civic groups, and religious leaders led a campaign against the industry that revealed much about fundamental changes in American society. The extension of postwar prosperity to adolescent consumers was in the process of creating a youth-oriented market culture that would reshape the central traditions of American consensus. Agitation resulted in an investigation of comic books and juvenile delinquency under the auspices of the United States Senate, and the enacting of a strict censorship code that struck controversial images and stories from the pages of comic books. This containment of cultural divisions would prove temporary, but it prefigured the conflicts of the following decades

Caped commodities and masked memories : the American comic book industry, collective memory, and the superhero

This thesis explores the relationship between collective memory, history and popular culture as it pertains to the American superhero comic. It examines some of the reasons behind and ways that American comic book publishers change their superhero character properties over time. This entails looking at the consequences of the ownership of character properties to the industry and the resulting economic impetus to alter their characters to both resonate with contemporary audiences and to keep them accessible to new readers. Despite these changes, those aspects of the superhero comic that are changed by this economic drive rarely disappear. Rather, comic book history continues to play a vital role in comic book fandom. Thus, this thesis examines the development and role of comic book reprints in the industry and comic book fandom. In a similar vein, it explores the role that knowledge of a character's--or a publisher's stable of characters'--diagetic history plays in contemporary superhero narratives and how such knowledge is disseminated. Both of these studies argue that knowledge and appreciation of past comic books play a vital role in contemporary comic book narratives and fandom. Finally, this thesis examines how discarded elements of past comic books come into play as allusions in later superhero narratives. This thesis questions if such allusions have been used as a means to represent the historical moments that the alluded to elements of past comic books are associated with. Ultimately this thesis argues that such allusive comics are one of the many textual resources that some theorists consider vital to understanding contemporary collective memor

When superheroes go native: Comic books and the images of American Indians since 1940

This study examines the evolution of American Indian representations in American comic books. It juxtaposes these transformations against a larger context of American Indian history, federal Indian policy, and developments in American popular culture. Indian comic book characters first appeared in the 1940's with such popular characters as Pow-Wow Smith. In the 1960's, spurred in part by the civil-rights and ethnic-power movements, such characters as Super-Chief and Johnny Cloud the Navajo Ace achieved popularity. In the 1970's figures such as Scalphunter and the X-Men's Thunderbird displaced some of the earlier superheroes. By the 1980's Puma, Warpath, and Psyche became pop-culture representatives of Native North America. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, such modern incarnations as Manitou Raven and Dashiell Badhorse assumed their legendary identities beside earlier heroes and heroines. Just as American Indians have begun to shape the discussion in the academy, in music, and in the performative arts, from powwows to movie-making, American Indians are just now moving into the writing and production of comic books either through tribal publications or small, independent presses. From the various comic books studied and the oral histories conducted with comic book writers, the theme of Indian Blindness emerged in that American Indians are not a "vanished race" in contemporary society, but more often an invisible one. Some images and expectations regarding American Indian themes persist due in large part to constant repetition of such stereotypical depictions in other media. These, such as arguments over sports teams and American Indian mascots, continually reinforce largely negative stereotypes of Native Americans. Additionally, whereas some contemporary authors have made concerted efforts at conducting research into Indian history to portray more authentic characters, many attempts at incorporating American Indian agency have been superficial, resulting likewise in the production of stock generalizations, cultural misrepresentations, and cultural misappropriations in the industry. As such, comic book representations of American Indians are largely contradictory, both challenging cultural expectations of American Indians while at times simultaneously reinforcing them

Comics and Conflict: War and Patriotically Themed Comics in American Cultural History From World War Ii Through the Iraq War

Illustration has been an integral part of human history. Particularly before the advent of media such as photography, film, television, and now the Internet, illustrations in all their variety have been the primary visual way to convey history. The comic book, which emerged in its modern form in the 1930s, was another form of visual entertainment that gave readers, especially children, a form of escape. As World War II began, however, comic books became an integral part of war propaganda as well providing information and education for both children and adults. This dissertation looks at how specific comic books of the war genre have been used to display patriotism, adventure through war stories, and eventually to tell of the horrors of combat--from World War II through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of the twenty-first century. This dissertation also examines how war- and patriotically-themed comics evolved from soldier-drawn reflections of society, eventually developing along with the broader comic book medium into a mirror of American society during times of conflict. These comic books generally reflected patriotic fervor, but sometimes they advanced a specific cause. As war comic books evolved along with American society, many also served as a form of protest against United States foreign and military policy. During the country\u27s most recent wars, however, patriotism has made a comeback, at the same time that the grim realties of combat are depicted more realistically than ever before

Fatal Attractions: American Comic Books and the AIDS Crisis

Prepared in partial completion for the Master's degree in American Studies at UMass Boston. Abstract: Between 1988 and 1994 American comic books engaged the politics, problematics, and crises of the AIDS epidemic by injecting the virus and its social, cultural, and epidemiological effects on gay men into the four-color fantasies of the superhero genre. As the comic-book industry was undergoing major internal changes that allowed for more mature, adult storylines, creators challenged the Comics Code Authority’s 1954 sanction against the representation of homosexuality to create, for the first time, openly gay characters. Creators’ efforts were driven by a desire to recognize the reality of gay men’s lived experiences, especially crucial in the epidemic time of the AIDS crisis. Through mainstream superhero comic books a small body of conscientious writers and artists confronted stereotypes and misinformation about HIV/AIDS, championed gay men’s rights, and fought homophobia. Comic-book creators developed a complex, sustained, and lively conversation about HIV/AIDS, gay men, and PWAs that was unprecedented both in the history of comic books and of other forms of popular culture

The Death of Superman: Superheroes in Contemporary Hollywood

For my undergraduate honors thesis, I propose a study on the evolution of Superman and Batman as superheroes in America over the course of the past century, ultimately leading to the creation of the comic book movie genre in contemporary cinema. The study will be done using the close analysis of two films, with each film viewed through the historical (social, political, religious) lens of the period it was made. The two films are as Superman (1978, Dir. Richard Donner) and Batman (1989, Dir. Tim Burton). Comic books, per the decade they are made, can offer a fantastic metaphor for what is happening socially in American culture. Although they are packaged as fantastic products for children, comic books are constantly fused with very adult, very sociopolitical themes. Movies tend to function in a similar way. Comics and movies aesthetically tell their stories in a homologous way as well. The blueprint for a movie is a storyboard, and a storyboard is basically a giant comic book. It is no surprise that the two art forms sutured themselves together. The marriage of comics and movies has unquestionably reached its peak in the new millennium. My study will catalog the history of the evolution of comic book movies, starting in the 1970’s with the first big comic book movie in Hollywood Superman, which really laid the blueprints for what a comic book movie should be like, and what a superhero should look like - uplifting and heroic. Superman was the cinematic comic book hero for over a decade (He was America’s preferred comic book hero for almost fifty years). Ten years later (on the tail end of the Reagan administration), Burton’s Batman looks like the polar opposite of Superman - a vinyl clad, gothic comic book world. Since then, Batman has dominated Hollywood. Although Batman and Superman were both born out of the Great Depression, there is a reason that Superman carries more popularity in the 1930’s through the 1970’s, but darker characters like Batman literally take over the movie, and comic, world by the end of the 1980’s and all the way through the new millennium. The study will compare and contrast the two films, while considering the social, political, and religious climates of the era each film was made in. The main focus of the compare and contrast will be on the superheroes in the two films, the environments in which they function, and the visual representation of the comic book on screen. Each superhero represents a certain set of ideals held by American culture, while the environments of these stories are often a direct reflection of the world we live in. In Superman, which takes place during the Jimmy Carter administration (usually viewed as a lighter period in U.S politics, particularly after the Watergate Scandal and Richard Nixon/Gerald Ford years). The film is light-hearted and funny. Superman is a hero that can do no wrong. He wears an incredibly bright costume that represents the colors of the American flag (red, white, and blue). When Superman flies overhead fighting injustice and protecting the American way, he literally becomes the physical embodiment of the American Dream. The country can rest easy because Superman is here to protect us, protect the “American way”. Superman is an alien, but more like a God. iiTim Burton’s Batman (1989) is almost the exact opposite. The film is very dark in tone and color scheme. Gotham City looks like an inversion of different time periods in American culture. Batman, who traditionally wore blue and grey in the comics, is given an all black, vinyl suit. Batman’s costume looks like something out of the BDSM culture (bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism). The world that Batman protects is a postmodern world of capitalism – Hell on Earth. Criminals run Gotham City - dirty cops, corrupt politicians, and leagues of brilliant psychopaths, just to name a few. Batman is considered a vigilante in the film world, not a superhero. He is human, but is incredibly skilled and has lots of wealth. This study will primarily treat films and comic books as texts, with the thematic and aesthetic analysis as a means to further understand the cinematic and social relevance of comic book movies, and superheroes, in American society. Research materials will include various books on the social, political, and philosophical function of comic books (both in print and on screen)